Choosing an attachment suitable for the job

Purchasing a new attachment can be expensive. You want to get the best value for your money. This means:-

• you have a job to do, and the attachment must be capable of doing it
• you want the attachment to last
• you want to put it to work often
• you want to minimise the cost of consumable parts
• you want to work efficiently to keep down fuel and labour costs
• you want it to be safe

Selecting an attachment that can do the job

The table below shows the capabilities of different attachments in terms of which materials they can cut.

Selecting an attachment that is made to last

Without going into detail, Echidna machines are ALL made to last. Echidna machines are undoubtedly a good choice!

Material			Suitable Cutting Equipment
	Compressive Strength MPa**	Description	Stump Grinder	Rock Grinder	Carbide Tipped Saw	Diamond Saw	Special Equipment
		Softwood	yes	yes			*
		Hardwood	yes	yes			*
		Gypsum		yes	yes		*
		Siltstone		yes	yes	yes	*
		Slate		yes	yes	yes	*
	30	Limestone		yes	yes	yes	*
	52	Marble		yes	yes	yes	*
	30-70	Sandstone		yes	yes	yes	*
		Asphalt		yes		yes	*
		Concrete		yes		yes	*
		Dolomite				yes	*
	131	Granite				yes	*
	140	Quartzite				yes	*
	224	Basalt				yes	*
		Copper					*
		Steel					*
* we can design special equipment to cut any of these materials. It is unlikely to be practical to design a single machine to cut all of the materials ** values provided for compressive strength of materials are indicative only.

Choosing a useful machine

To put a machine to work often, you may be tempted to opt for a universal machine that does everything. We have discussed this in another article in Knowledge Corner ('The Dilemma of Choosing between a Dedicated Machine or one that does everything.'), and won't go into further detail, suffice to say that there are some good possibilities (eg Echidna's stump grinder wheel can be replaced with a wood cutting or concrete cutting blade without compromising on the performance of any), but care should be taken in ensuring that the operational requirements of each machine is not too badly compromised.

How can you minimise the cost of consumables?

With diamond saws, the first thing to do is choose the smallest blade that will work with your saw, and will do the job that needs to be done. Small blades are much cheaper to run.(See How do I choose the right blade for my diamond saw?)

Tungsten-carbide tips appear to be much cheaper than retipping your diamond blade. But bear in mind that if you are cutting harder materials, your tungsten-carbide tips will wear faster and need to be replaced more often.

Rockcutting Efficiently

To work efficiently, you need to match the power of your excavator pumps with the power of the attachment.If your pumps will deliver 120kW, why not use it all? The more power you use, the faster you cut. Echidna provides a wide range of attachments so that we can match your excavator, rather than limiting hydraulic flows and wasting power.

Stalling the blade on a rocksaw also lowers the cutting efficiency. This can be avoided by choosing a combination of saw, blade and excavator that work well together, and by installing a cutting optimiser, which will keep the blade spinning at the right speed.(see Cutting Optimiser - gimmick or necessity? for more information about how a cutting optimiser works and Click here to visit our product description of the Echidna Cutting Optimiser).

Rockcutting Safely

Rockcutting is a potentially dangerous operation. A spinning cutting wheel has a lot of momentum. Teeth and debris can fly away from the blades at high speed.

An automatically operating brake on the blade of a rocksaw is an essential safety feature. With Echidna rocksaws, simply removing power from the saw causes the blade to stop spinning immediately.

The blade should be thoroughly shielded to prevent as much debris from flying as possible. The shields provided with Echidna saws give as much protection as possible by have to independantly swivelling parts. The reversible spin of the blade also allows some control of where the debris will fly.

The rocksaw you choose should be constructed in such a way the the flange holding the blade does not wear, as eventually it can wear right down to the screws which connect the blade to the saw. A fast spinning blade, suddenly disconnected from a rocksaw is a deadly object.